Finding hope within the loss

“Praise the LORD!

Let all that I am praise the LORD.

I will praise the LORD as long as I live.

I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.”

This summer has breathed so much life into my soul as all my kids have been home, and we have been together. Life with them is simply my most favorite thing in this world. They are each so uniquely brilliant, and we are a beautiful mess of a family together. As the summer months have flown by, I am astounded that we are crossing more than seventh months without Tod being present here. At times, it feels as though it just happened yesterday and then other times as if I have lived a lifetime without him. I have caught myself often in a bit of a panic with the need to call him to tell him everything that has been happening since he left. In that same moment, I realize the craziness of that thought and the impossibility of making that phone call and his absence presses in. 

I haven’t shared much about what being a mom in these circumstances looks like because I have wanted to protect my kids as they continue to figure life out. But at seven months in, the dissonance between my head’s knowledge and my heart’s true beliefs handily make themselves known in this setting, and this journey continues to humble me and press me into my great need for God’s help, and that is especially true for me as a mom now. I ultimately have no control when it comes to the internal nature of my childrens’ hearts and their personal journeys into grief. There is so much that I just have to entrust over to God to work out, and my false notions of self-reliance and control are a couple of the idols that are taking a pounding right now within His gracious chastening. 

“Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;

There is no help for you there.

When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,

And all their plans die with them.”

As a parent, I certainly have had my failures, my share of over-protecting and under-protecting. It seems as though I’m constantly on an uphill learning curve in this fast paced tech-centered world that continually beckons all our kids into the false belief that they are the center of the universe. The very lie that brought down the Garden of Eden so handily and continues to taint all of our fleshly hearts. 

I have found that parenting my children is really God’s stealth tool for parenting me with my own need for forgiveness and restoration. There have been countless times over 24 years of parenting that as the words of correction or love are pouring forth from my mouth to the ears of my children that the Lord whispers again in my ears those very same words that are coming out of my mouth! In that moment I am struck by the realization that what I thought was an issue of parenting one of my littles is actually my heavenly Father shepherding me and my heart. 

So add in now this very weighty grief, and I am far beyond my ability to know how to parent here. My level of need in this calls me to wade out into depths of faith and trust, for He asks me not for perfection or even understanding, but rather daily to believe and hope in His ability to do a restorative and redemptive work in their lives, and my only response is “Yes, LORD, do your work in them and help me not get in the way! Amen”

“But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper,

Whose hope is in the LORD their God.”

Tod’s and my greatest desire for our children has been that they would learn to trust and navigate this life with Jesus at the very center of their being, that His will would consume their lives as they live out the passions and gifts He has placed within them. As parents, Tod and I spent a lot of effort seeking to protect our little sojourners from the hurts this world so willingly offers up, at times, in ways that were successful and godly, other times, in ways that were unsuccessfully and completely ungodly.

Intellectually, as parents, we know that the day will come when our children will have to walk through the fire of testing alone, we can’t soften, avoid, or fix it for them. But our hearts desperately hurt for them when the hard things hit and wound in this place we all call life. As a parent you pray and hope that God is “abundantly more than enough” as you have been telling them. Trusting that as He meets them in the fire purifying and refining them, He lovingly sustains them with His hope through the intensity. Even the wounds of this world and our own wrecked souls are under the care of God’s powerful nature which is resurrective and restorative. Nothing is beyond His ability to redeem, but the heat can feel so scary and frightening.

"He made the heavens and earth,

The sea, and everything in them.

He keeps every promise forever.

He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry.”

I have discovered that as my children continue to walk this journey, each of them is on their own unique path, God is faithfully and intimately sustaining them. All of our individual griefs are so unique to the very core of who we each are, and there have been dark moments of suffering, hard conversations, and painful cries. I’m sure there will be lots more of those to come, but each of my kids are honest with their thoughts and feelings regardless of what they are. I’m amazed as I watch them question, process, and then simply trust God when it makes no sense too. While it continues to work our hearts over, they continue to remain strong in love, and patient with a mom who is figuring it out one day at a time. 

They, like me, are in a process of learning how this fits into their personal stories. They amazingly do that openly and honestly far beyond anything I could have done at any of their ages. I have had conversations with each of them over the past seven months that I would have never asked for or had honestly planned for, but those private moments with them are some of the most holy and treasured moments of my life, glimpses into their souls that are purely God’s beautiful grace upon my life.

"The LORD frees the prisoners.

The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.

The LORD lifts up those who are weighed down.

The LORD loves the godly."

I am learning from them how to simply trust God’s hand, and laughing or crying with them is probably my most favorite thing in the world.  These days that are painfully marked by Tod’s absence are deeply cherished in my heart as I continue to discover the depths of my children and how their individually designed souls reflect the brilliance of divine imagination. The Lord is incredibly faithful to do His work within them helping them figure out their journeys as He continues to help and guide me too. He is our Father together, and He is leading our family faithfully moment by moment, showing us enough individually and collectively to take the next step.

Seeing God father my children is such a consolation for the fractures of my heart, and it not only continues to sustain me but draws me into closer union with Him stirring up my heart in affection for His faithful love and help. His word is unbelievably intimate with me and continues to give me what I am so desperately in need of, strength and hope.  He continues to tenderly reveal the truth about me, my kids, and Himself as He nurtures our souls with His unfailing love.

“The LORD protects the foreigners among us.

He cares for the orphans and widows,

But frustrates the plans of the wicked.”

Ultimately, everyday God asks me to open up my hands that can hold so tightly around my children and our family, submit to Him fully abandoned to self and trust Him as my Sovereign, my Savior, and my Father. I fail everyday countless times at it, but His grace invites me to trust again and try again. While I didn’t ask for this, or write my story with this grief in it, these circumstances have been entrusted to me not because I am able to handle them, but rather because within my brokenness He is abundantly able to be my strength and my hope in each moment and He cares far more for them than I can conceive, after all, He is their Creator.

So as loss carves its' way across our lives, it is ironically revealing God's brilliant nature to bring glory to Himself as He works His good out for us each. Tod’s absence is undeniably present with us every moment, and life is achingly altered forever, yet God faithfully pours His hope out abundantly like a waterfall bringing new life into our most desperate of spaces. The hope of Jesus to be nothing short of dynamic, powerful, and transformational. For me, hope’s name is nothing other than Jesus. 

"The LORD will reign forever.

He will be your God, O Jerusalem,

Throughout the generations."

Praise the LORD!”

  Psalm 146:1-10